3-2-1 RECAP: Illini Lose Braggin' Rights Game For Second Straight Year

For the first time since 2012, Illinois has lost consecutive games to Missouri. Illini drop the Braggin' Rights Game Saturday 63-56.

ST. LOUIS -- For the second straight year, Missouri was the better team offensively, the more physical team and the happier team leaving the Enterprise Center.

Missouri won the Braggin’ Rights rivalry game in back-to-back years for the first time since 2012. Illinois, who came in with much more offensive chops in this matchup, was held to just 2 of 14 from 3-point range and 36 percent shooting in a frustrating 63-56 loss to the Tigers.

Missouri (7-4) simply embodied the tough defensive mentality and playing style of its Cuonzo Martin by winning a game where two of its top three scorers (Mark Smith and Jeremiah Tilmon) combined for just four points.

Smith and Tilmon, both with obvious ties to the Illini program, are able to carry that trophy back to Columbia, Missouri as the Tigers held an opponent under 60 points for the sixth time this season. Missouri is 21-0 under Cuonzo Martin when holding its foe to 59 or fewer points.

Illinois (8-4) seemingly couldn’t adapt to the physical Missouri defense as Trent Frazier, who came in averaging 25.0 points in the Braggin’ Rights series tallying a game-high 22 points as a

freshman and game-high 28 points last year, finished the afternoon with just five points on just five shots.

Missouri guard Javon Pickett (4) celebrates during the second half against Illinois at Enterprise Center. Missouri would win the Braggin' Rights Game for the second consecutive year by a 63-56 margin :: Jeff Curry/USA TODAY Sports

Javon Pickett had 17 points off Missouri’s bench but it may have been his post-game comment of “we knew we were the tougher team” that defined the 2019 version of the Braggin’ Rights rivalry game. Pickett, who is from nearby Belleville, Ill., now has back-to-back double-figure efforts against Illinois after posting 16 points on 7-of-8 shooting last season.

Illinois freshman center Kofi Cockburn, who lone freshman in the NCAA averaging a double-double (15.4 ppg & 10.5 rpg), was neutralized on the glass with just two rebounds in 34 minutes. Missouri outscored Illinois in the paint (26-24), on second-chance opportunities (16-6) and with its bench (31-10) on a day where Illini third-year head coach Brad Underwood challenged his team’s effort level in the post-game media conference.

“We can talk about X’s and O’s but it’s (about) playing with your hair on fire all the time,” Underwood said. “It’s an understanding that we’re very privileged to play this game. For their players, it’s very personal. They play that way. We don’t. We didn’t.”

Following a frustrating two-point effort last season in this game, Illinois guard Ayo Dosunmu finished with a game-high 21 points and nearly a team-high in rebounds with five.

Illinois, which will now go two years without a premier non-conference win, will host North Carolina A&T on Dec. 29 before rejoining Big Ten Conference action at Michigan State on Jan. 2.

Here are three major takeaways from this win for the Illini:

1) Missouri game plan was to challenge Illinois’ toughness, physicality, and will. And it worked big. 

The plan was simple for Missouri coach Cuonzo Martin. Keep punching Illinois in the mouth and see how they respond. While he’d love to have size, skill and shooting, Martin’s basketball world forged in East St. Louis and matured as a player at Purdue, is all about having his team’s to play with extreme toughness and physicality. Illinois was unable to handle that kind of game Saturday on a big stage. 

Cockburn, who was projected this week by Big Ten Network analyst Stephen Bardo to be a lottery pick in the 2020 NBA Draft, had just two rebounds and wasn’t able to get positioning on the block for his normal load of post touches.

Giorgi Bezhanishvili was unable to stay on the floor with constant foul trouble and when he was on the floor the sophomore had more turnovers (6) than points (5). The native of Georgia said following the game that he “let my teammates down” with another frustrating outing at the power forward spot. Illinois missed six layups and allowed Missouri to match them on the offensive glass after coming in today leading the NCAA in rebound margin (+14.2) and ranking second nationally in offensive rebound percentage (40.7 percent).

2) Here we go again on effort for the Illini…

Brad Underwood thought he had this lack of effort and intensity licked after the disaster that was the first half against Miami (Fla.). Following the loss to the Hurricanes at the State Farm Center on Dec. 2, Illinois appeared to be a team where that would be an outlying data point on the 2019-20 season. Think again.

The Illini third-year head coach pointed to the main problem of his team being a “lack of fight” in a game that is circled on the schedule each and every season. Dosunmu, who led all players in scoring with 21 points, said in the post-game that “we should have to wait for Coach (Underwood) to get hyped to play defense and it should be a respect thing that we do it ourselves.”

If Illinois has a toughness and physicality issue, upcoming games at Michigan State, vs. Purdue and at Wisconsin to open up January usually aren’t recipes for success.

3) Illinois hasn’t proven it can make deep shots in the halfcourt

The Illini came into this game shooting just 31.7 from 3-point range. This number won’t get much better as they left Enterprise Center Saturday making just 2 of 14 from beyond the arc. This is officially the Achilles heel of this Illini offense. The only consistent rotation players shooting 35 percent or better from beyond the arc are Frazier, Alan Griffin, and Bezhanishvili. Illinois proved again Saturday with just 18 field goals and 17 turnovers that playing in the half-court continues to be a major problem. Missouri simply kept Frazier from getting more than one open look from the perimeter and forced everything else in Illinois’ offensive world to either be a tough two-pointer or worse. As Underwood and his staff know, Big Ten Conference schools have coaching staffs as well, and highly paid ones at that, and until Illinois forces teams to stop packing it in on Cockburn, the scouting book on the Illini is being easily read over the Christmas holiday.